front cover design (c) danielle birks 2008

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~ SUITABLE FOR BOTH YOUNG AND MATURE READERS ~ Contains no graphic scenes of violence or sex.

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FROM THE FIRST PAGE The cold had always been with me. It was my unwelcome companionship. I could see the cold from my small bedroom window. I stared at it through bruised eyes, that frosty fall floating from the icy skies, drifting in the path of a hazy winter moon. I shivered. Where was my sun of many a season passed? Where was the warmth to keep me well? Warmth. I remember a dell of warm dreams. I remember a lair of warm fur, the lair I had left with the coming of the winter chills. But oh, my sorrowing heart belonged to my woodland friends, to that love which nourishes me in the wild, but the wilds that be my home in those warm days of summer waltzing had died into leafless haunts of freezing misery. I had been left with nothing but to bid my farewell to my furry friends. So I returned to my other home, the one of hoary stone, almost as cold and if anything else, more miserable. It was so very big. It was so very bleak. It was so very empty, so empty of love. Thusly, I would sit here by this window, listening to the call of my kindred. Their woe-filled cries were also my companionship and I dared wish their serenading would soften my pain and more than anything in my dark world, I would wish to hearken to their song. Leaning to the rough stone of the windowsill, I wiped my tears against the tatty sleeve of my shirt. Just tonight I wanted an escape. I wanted to embrace the darkling lore of my life. But I was kept locked up within these loveless stone walls more often now. Too often now. FROM PAGE 43/44 It was another snowy winter's day when I ventured from the bed. I had no clean clothes to dress in, I had no courage to muster but all I wanted to do was to leave the castle. My face marked with wolfen rage, my soul tortured by neglect, I could no longer bare to remain. I think my father had been watching me from within the shadows when silently I passed through the entrance and out the doors. He knew I was too weak to stray far and so sometimes he would let me out, but mostly he would not. The sky was all dark grey and the snow had made the castle garden a land of tangled white. The air was still and not a sound could be heard. The ground was so cold beneath my feet and I shivered. But yet I think the castle was just as cold. Walking through the pine trees, walking a far distance I was hoping to get lost. A wolf had heard my footfalls when I passed its lair and soon I had a companion to walk with. But I began to feel very tired and I sat myself down upon a rocky outcrop. The grey wolf sat before me, its golden eyes staring at me. This wolf could feel sympathy for a battered child, this disheveled wreck who sits before it. Not all the wolves were bad. The big black wolf was the only wolf which had ever actually been cruel to me. My father's minion perhaps. But I imagined something far more sinister. As far back as I could cast my memory, way back to my early childhood, I always had a feeling that secrets had been kept from me. My very first memory was an image of a wolf, one who nuzzled me and kept me warm. Yet it was so much a fragment of a memory, pieces of my infancy I could not gather to make a whole. My father may have been able to tell me, but I feared my answer would be a slap in the face. I picked my head up out of my lap when I heard the wolf shaking the snow from its fur. Then I saw that the grey in the sky had nearly turned all black. A howl carried from some distance and it was then my companion departed. I wanted to follow but so weak and cold, I fell from the rock onto my knees. Snow began to fall again and I gazed into the bleak forest, a little frightened. It was then that I saw a faint dot of light swaying amongst the trees. If it was not my father, it must be a villager and I was in great danger. FROM PAGE 116/117 Rane may have not heard that howl, but I heard it and Bromly had heard it. Crawling beneath my quilt, as soon as my eyes were shut, I had a most gruesome dream. Never had I doubted my father's immortal strength and so I must of thought he were brutish enough to make me dream I lay in my bed with a wolf. A big black wolf filling my eyes with horror and fear. A big black body rubbing against my body, filling it with pain. I felt that my father, whilst he held me captive in Wyldrathea, had only just begun to possess fragments of my soul, the part of me that felt lost and alone… a puppy without its master. But surely not even my darkest imagination could conjure such a dreadful thing. Yet as I lay with this beast in my sleep, its possession over me was a certainty. I knew Count Valahyer was still lurking in the midst of my being and the mighty struggle against the pain soon became pleasure within me, the pleasure that could only be fulfilled in the company of wolves. When finally I opened my eyes, I awakened in a startle. Throwing off the quilt I slapped my hands against my body. Frantically examining myself I discovered, to my great relief, that I was still me and not the wolf I would never want to be. It was only a dream. Just a terrible dream. Then when I heard a small whimper I looked over the foot of the bed and there lay Bromly, gazing up to me from beneath the quilt I'd unintentionally thrown onto him and I smiled in reassurance. If Bromly had been here with me all this time, then never would he have allowed a wolf to enter my bed. When the sun had risen high and bright around the cottage I decided to sit outside upon the porch. It was a cool tranquil day, one that would not threaten a storm. The rainstorm last night really upset me and I truly felt bad that I had deserted Rane, for the sighs I had given her surely made her believe I was ready to surrender to her. I think I might have if it were not for the howling wolf. I wanted to be with Rane in all ways. I wanted to share all of my heart with her but I feared all my heart would not be accepted by her. It would not be understood. My time in captivity had really shown me what I could become, what was a part of me. Could any mortal comprehend that? Would any mortal want to love that?